Thursday, 31 July 2014

In an earlier post I looked at the clothes bought for
Nicholas LeStrange for his marriage in 1630, and that post gives the background
to the family. In this post I will look at the clothes provided to Elizabeth
LeStrange between 1628 (when she was 13) and 1637 (after her wedding). As with
the previous post I have not looked at the originals, but at the book on the
LeStrange accounts. (Whittle & Griffiths, 2012)

Over the nine year period fifteen outfits were purchased,
some included accessories others did not. Between 1628 and 1632, the time she
reached the age eighteen, she would have been growing, and over this period she
received seven outfits. Between 1633 and her marriage in June 1635 she received
four outfits. Two outfits were purchased for her wedding, one four months after
her wedding and one (the most expensive) in April 1637. These outfits did not
constitute the whole of her purchases of clothing, as items such as shoes,
stockings, linens, gloves etc. were purchased separately. In addition from the
age of 21 she received an annual allowance for clothes of £40 a year,
equivalent to the income of a tradesman’s family.

The outfits purchased for Elizabeth range in cost from £3
10s for a petticoat and waistcoat of black silk-watered mohair in 1635, to £61
17s 10d for a plush and silver and gold tissued grogram outfit given to her as
a present after her marriage.

To get an idea of what her outfits might have looked liked above is a 1630 portrait by Cornelius Johnson of an unknown woman. Her
outfit is very similar in style to this 1633 portrait, also by Johnson, of Lady
Margaret Hungerford. Johnson was one of the most popular portrait painters
of his day until Anthony Van Dyck returned to England in 1632. Using Van Dyck’s
paintings as examples can be problematical because, as Gordenker(2001)
has argued, Van Dyck can “simplify” his sitter’s dress to produce a style
sometimes referred to as “careless romance.”

Petticoats: By
this time separate skirts are referred to as petticoats, in the sixteenth
century petticoats could be referred to as having an upperbody. (Huggett, 1999)
Randle Holme (1688)
(who will be much referred to) calls petticoats “the skirt of the gown without
its body; but that is generally termed a peti-coat, which is worn either under
a gown, or without it.” It is sometimes difficult in Alice’s accounts to pick
out which fabric goes with which garment. Sometimes a petticoat and waistcoat
will be purchased together as in “petticoat and waistcoat of watered
sky-coloured taffeta with silver lace, £8 16s. However sometimes there is an
amount of fabric purchased for a gown, possibly with an integral skirt, and a
further amount for a petticoat to wear under it, as in 18 yards of crimson tammel
for a gown, plus 9 yards of white and red Norwich damask for a petticoat.

1620s outfit photo c.1929

Gown: Gown is
a term that, like petticoat, is changing its meaning. A gown can be what you
wear over, either a waistcoat and petticoat combination, or a pair of bodies
with sleeves and maybe a stomacher and a petticoat. In 1630 16 yards of black
tufted grogram were purchased for a gown, and 12 yards of lemon coloured satin
for a waistcoat to go with it.There was
a petticoat but we don’t know if it was black or lemon, only that half a yard
of yellow perpetuana was bought to border the petticoat. Gowns rarely survive
but there was one in a French collection before the Second World War, as shown
in this very old photograph. A rear view of something similar can be seen in
one of Hollar’s prints from his 1640 Ornatus
Muliebris series. A gown can also mean the whole ensemble, the bodice part
and the petticoat part, even though they are separate. Randle Holme (1688)
describes a woman’s gown as having “several parts” among which he includes; the
stays, the stomacher, the sleeves, and the skirt or gown skirt.

Waistcoats: Do
not think of men’s waistcoats, these are very different. Randle Holme (1688)
describes a waistcoat as “the outside of a gown without either stays or bodies
fastened to it ....some wear them with stomachers.” He also speaks of them
having gored skirts, so probably with a stomacher they looked like this
1620-1630 example in the Museum
of London, a pattern for this appears in Waugh(1968),
diagram no. 4; or without a stomacher like this pink silk waistcoat from
1610-1620 in the Victoria
and Albert Museum. Detailed information, photographs and patterns for the
pink silk waistcoat appear in North and Tiramani (2011) so I am not sure why
the photos on the V&A website are in black and white.

Bodies: Elizabeth
received two pairs of bodies, these are often seen as equating to eighteen
century stays, or nineteenth century corsets, which they do to a certain
extent. They are boned and can be undergarments, but can be covered with an
outer layer making it suitable for visible wear. They can also come with
separate sleeves, as in the pink set from the 1660s in the Victoria
and Albert Museum, information and a pattern for this appear in the second
North and Tiramani(2012) book. Both the
outfits purchased for Elizabeth’s wedding came with bodies, a pair of bodies
for 8s and a pair of damask bodies for £1 2s. In addition either the gown or,
more likely, the waistcoat in Elizabeth’s black and lemon outfit was stiffened,
as the accounts for it include a sum for bents. Bents were stiff or rigid reeds
that were used instead of whalebone to provide stiffening to garments.

Sleeves: Two
pairs of sleeves appear in the accounts and in both cases they are listed with
a stomacher. They may be like the sleeves that come with the pink bodies
mentioned above, and lace to an armhole.

Van Dyck. Henrietta Maria

Stomachers: The
stomacher is the infill covering the stomach, or as Holme says, “is that peece
that lieth under the lacings or binding of the body of the gown.” This lacing
over a stomacher can clearly be seen in this Van Dyck portrait of Henrietta
Maria. Unfortunately stomachers rarely survive with the garment they were
designed for, although several stomachers on their own do survive as in this
late 17th century example in the Feller
Collection.

Kirtle: One
kirtle is listed. By the 1620s this is a very old fashioned term. It was
falling out of use by the late 16th century as Huggett (1999)
has shown in her comparison of wills from the third and fourth quarters of the
sixteenth century. It is generally considered that a kirtle had a body, which
could be made of a different fabric to the skirt, and was worn under the gown. (Mikhaila & Malcolm-Davies, 2006)

Roll: Farthingales
had gone out of fashion by 1620, but some fashionable women still used what
Holmes referred to as “bearers, rowls, fardingales” to “raise up the skirt at
that place to what breadth the wearer pleaseth, and as the fashion is.”

Gorget and cuffs: A
gorget according to the OED is a covering for the neck and breast. Unlike a
neckerchief, which was usually square, the gorget was curved and was therefore
bracketed with rails, which were a lightweight shoulder cape, as in Corbet’s
circa 1635 poem which says, “To the Ladyes of the New Dresse, That weare their
gorgets and rayles doune to their wastes.” An example is in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, and is described in detail in North & Tiramani(2012, pp. 116-121). The bone (bobbin)
lace on the cuffs, since they were purchased as a set, would probably have
matched the lace on the gorget, and a £6 12s cost more than some of her
petticoat and waistcoat sets. Here is a collar
and cuffs set from the 1630s in the V&A, in this example the collar is
tucked into the neckline of the gown and is not worn at the throat.

The fabrics

As well as fabrics most would recognise, such as satin,
damask and taffeta, there are many fabrics that are less well known. Listed
below are these fabrics and definitions for them as well as an indication of
how they were used. The definitions used here all come from the OED online
edition or Beck (1882) unless otherwise
stated:

Baize (bays):
This is not the baize we think of today used for covering snooker tables and
the like. It was one of the new draperies. Beck states that it was introduced
to England in 1561. The OED describes it as “A coarse woollen stuff, having a long nap,” but in the seventeenth
century it is often described as slight or thin. In the accounts it is used for
a scarlet petticoat,

Camel’s hair (camlet):
This is a fabric which is very difficult to pin down, as Beck says, “the
changes have been rung with all materials in every possible combination,
sometimes wool, sometimes silk, sometimes hair.” It is often mentioned with, or
conflated with grograms, as in a charter of 1641 which has “grogram or mohair
yarne” and “chamletts or grograms” In the accounts it is used for a petticoat.

Grogram: The OED
has this as a coarse fabric of silk, of mohair and wool,
or of these mixed with silk; often stiffened with gum. This was used for three
of the gowns, one of them is described as tufted grogram, and another, which is
in silver and gold, as tissued. There is a later, 1660s, silver tissue dress in
the Fashion
Museum at Bath.

Perpetuana: Another
of the new draperies. OED describes it as a durable woollen fabric, but Beck
mentions that John May in 1613complained
that although it had kept its width and length its pitch (pick) had gone down
from 1200 to 800. Half a yard of this fabric was used to border a petticoat.

Plush: A rich
fabric of silk, cotton, wool, or other material (or any of these combined), Beck
describes it as a long napped velvet. Twelve yards of this (cost £12), was used
together with 11¼ yards of gold and silver tissued grogram (cost £36) to make
Elizabeth’s most expensive gown.

Princely: This does not appear in the OED or Beck, so we really
don’t know what it was.

Tabby: Is a
general term for a silk taffeta, but in this case it is described as brocaded
tabby, and 6 yards are used in the tissued gown.

Philizela: Is not
in the OED or Beck, but may well be philoselle which in both is a wrought silk.
This was used for a crimson gown.

Sarcenet: A very
fine and soft silk material made both plain and twilled. This was used for a
petticoat, a waistcoat and a gown.

Tammel: Now this
could be stammel, which according to the OED is, a coarse woollen cloth, or
linsey-woolsey. More likely, given the other fabrics purchased for her, it
could be Tammy (also spelt as Tammis), which the OED describes as “A fine
worsted cloth of good quality, often with a glazed finish.” This was used for
three gowns.

The lace

There is tendency to
think of lace entirely in terms of white, and of either bobbin or needle lace.
Where the reference is just to bone (bobbin) lace, as in 10 yards of bone lace,
then this is probably true, but Elizabeth also has black and metallic laces.
Lace at this period can refer to lace in a modern sense, but it can also refer
to what today we would probably refer to as braid. The metallic laces are
listed not only by length, but by the weight of the metal in them, as in 28
yards of silver bone lace weighing 32¼ ounces. A bodice
dating to 1650-70 in the Museum
of London shows this type of heavy silver lace decorating the front. There
was a law suit in the 1590s when a gentleman was charged by his tailor for a
certain weight of metallic lace, his servant thought there wasn’t enough and
took all the lace off and weighed it, discovering that it was 80 ounces less
than had been paid for. (Levey, 1983) There are also
references in Elizabeth’s clothing to galloon lace (which is a braid lace),
whip lace, edging lace and comparsed lace.

The colours

Two of the gowns and four of the petticoat and waistcoat
sets were black, which was an extremely popular colour, and appears in almost
every fabric type, grogram, satin, taffeta, lace, tammel, damask, princely and
mohair.One gown and the kirtle with a
stomacher were a pearl colour. One gown was silver, for her wedding, and
another silver and gold, which was the most expensive garment purchased.

Reds were traditionally a colour often used for petticoats.
Elizabeth has two gowns of crimson, one with a white and red damask petticoat,
and the other with a watchet (light blue-green) and yellow stitched taffeta for
the petticoat, sleeves and stomacher. Three yards of scarlet baize were used
for a petticoat.

One of the black gowns, purchased at the time of her
brother’s wedding, had a lemon coloured satin waistcoat, and half a yard of
yellow perpetuana was used to border the petticoat.

Blue appears only as a watered sky coloured taffeta for a
waistcoat and petticoat set.

One waistcoat and petticoat set was of green watered
taffeta, and five yards of green stitched taffeta was used in another outfit,
though it is not obvious what it was for.

Friday, 4 July 2014

Women’s headdresses in the late seventeenth century were
incredibly complex, and reached heights unseen since the hennin in the
fifteenth century. The Ladies Dictionary, written by N.H. and printed by John Dunton in 1694,
discusses much about the fashions of the time, a facsimile reprint of this was
published in 2010.

In 1925 a collection of extracts from the Ladies Dictionary was
published under the title The Closet of Beauty, and the A-Z below comes from
a section of this entitled Apparel or the Ladies' Dressing Room.

To illustrate the fashion being discussed I have chosen two
images. A 1694 fashion plate engraved by the French artist Jean Dieu de
Saint-Jean (1654-1695) shows a lady in winter clothing, wearing, from the list below; a commode, echelles, engageants, mouche and a palatine. The second engraving is of
Queen Mary II, and shows more detail of the headdress

An Attache –is as much to say, vulgarly, tack’d or fasten’d
together, or one thing fasten’e to another

A Burgoigin – is
that part of the head-dress that covers the hair, being the first part of the dress.

A Berger – is a
little lock, plain, with a Puff turning up like the ancient fashion used by shepherdesses.

A Campaigne – is a
kind of a narrow lace, pick’d or scallop’d.

A Choux – is the
round boss behind the head, resembling a cabbage, and the French accordingly so
name it.

A Colberteen – is
a lace resembling network, being of the manufacture of Monsieur Colbert, a
French states-man.

A Commode –is a
frame of wire, two or three stories high, fitted for the head, or cover’d with tiffany,
or other thin silks: being now completed into the whole Head-dress.

A Confidant – is a
small curl next the ear.

A Cornet is the
upper pinner that dangles about the cheeks, hanging down with flaps.

A Creve-coeur – by
some call’d heart-breaker, is the curl’d lock at the nape of the neck, and
generally there are two of them.

A Crunch or Crunches
– are the small locks that dangle on the forehead.

An Echelles – is a
stomacher lac’d or ribboned in the form of steps of a ladder.

Engageants – are
double ruffles that fall over the wrists.

Al-Favourites – a
sort of modish locks which hang dangling on the temples.

A Flandan – is a
kind of pinner joined with a cornet.

A Font-Ange – is a
modish top knot first worn by Mademoiselle d’Fontange, one of the French King’s
Misses, from whom it takes its name.

Queen Mary II

A Jardine – is a
single pinner next the low mark or Burgogn.

A pair of Martial’s
gloves –so called from the
Frenchman’s name, who pretends to make them better than others.

A Mont la Haut - is a certain wire that raises the head-dress
by degrees or stories.

A Mouchoir – is
only that which we vulgarly call a handkerchief.

A Mouche – is a
fly or black patch.

A Murtnere – is a
black knot that unites and ties the curls of the hair.

A Palantine – is
that which used to be called a sable-tippet, but that name is change to one
that is supposed to be finer, because newer, and a la mode de France.

A Passanger – is a
curled lock next to the temple, and commonly two of them are used.

A Panache – is any
tassel of ribbons very small, etc.

A Ragg – is a
quaint name they give to point or lace, so that the sempstresses who bring them
to the chambers of the ladies are called by them ragwomen.

A Rayonne – is a
hood placed over the rest, pinned in a circle.

A Settee – is only
a double pinner.

A Sortie - is a little knot of small ribbons; it
appears between the bonnet and the pinner.

A Spagnolet - is a gown with narrow sleeves and lead in
them to keep them down a la Spagnole.

A Sultane – is one
of these new fashioned gowns with buttons and loops.

A Surtout – is a
night-hood, which goes over or covers the rest of the head-gear.

A Tour – is an
artificial dress of hair, first invented by some ladies that had lost their own
hair, and borrowed of other to cover their shame, but since it is brought into
a fashion.

An Asasm or Venez moy –signifies
a breast knot, or may serve for the two leading strings that pull a lady to her
sweetheart.